The Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology: A Christian Response

Foltz, Franz A.; Foltz, Frederick A.

Journal of Technology Studies, v32 n2 p104-114 Spr 2006

In the past two years, every magazine on the newsstands has featured nanotechnology. The articles usually speak of nanotech as the latest emerging platform technology that will substantially transform the material and social world, just as electricity and nuclear science did previously. What is usually not mentioned in these articles is reference to the fact that nanotech could be the first platform technology to offer significant opportunities to include discussions of the social and environmental concerns in its development. Usually, it is not until a technology is well established that its social and ethical implications become known. Many claim that working on the atomic and molecular level will offer the opportunity to solve all of humanity's basic problems. In fact, one of the popular ways to present nanotech is to ask the audience to list the most pressing current and future global challenges that have potential technological fixes and then to claim nanotech will solve every one of them. However, no one mentions the potential social and ethical impacts of this new technology. In this article, the authors discuss the Christian response to the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology. As the Christian Church has struggled to cope with rapid technological change, four naive understandings of the relationship between Christianity and technology have developed. The authors discuss the four naive views of the relationship between Christianity and technology and provide various Christian views on nanotech. The authors discuss six Christian concerns, shared by many critics of technologies that are worth examining in considering the development of nanotech. (Contains 2 notes.)